A Lady Ashmo Adventure

novel

Okay, so here I was chugging along, getting an impressive word count each day, patting myself on the back for sticking to my goals.

well….

I spent two weeks in the hospital, and the past week dealing with the fallout of being in the hospital. don’t worry, I didn’t die.

But a great big ‘ol wrench got thrown in the middle of my beautifully laid plans. and it was something grand, let me tell you!

I’ve decided however, that just because life forced me to skip out of Nanowrimo, I don’t have to skip out on the project I was working on. So Go Bite Yourself continues. My word count updates will be posted here. You know, sporadically, because underneath all this bluster I’m still the same ‘ol me.

Cheers and happy writing all!!

OH! And a belated happy Turkey Day. Hope you have things to be thankful for. if not, buy a book. Those things are magic portals to cheer even the coldest of hearts.

Yup, its that time again. Nanowrimo 2016. I’ve follow along and encourage friends to do this in previous years, and enjoy hearing people completed their work. This year, I’m taking up the challenge myself.

For this 50,000 word endevor, I am writing a new book titled Go Bite Yourself.

Here is the blurb based on my starting concept:

Hamlin T. Barrow wakes up dead. not, you know, DEAD dead, but UNdead. Without any kind of guidance, he blunders through keeping in touch with family, trying not to eat every delicious smelling jogger he passes, and figuring out how to cure his vampiric infection.

Here is a small taste of the opening chapter:

Dead people stink. I mean, the living don’t always smell like sunshine and daisies either, but the dead smell particularly pungent. Especially the undead. The breath of a hungry vampire can peel automotive paint. So when one gets close enough to, say, unleash a roar of uncontrolled rage directly into your face, you nose mouth and eyes get hit with a wave of sulfur-infused-tooth-rot-halitosis of the otherworldly variety.

Gross.

I should probably be afraid for my life. This guy is stronger, faster, and deader than me. Age seems to matter to these guys a lot. But the thing is, I already died once, and that worked out pretty much okay. When you get up and walk away from what I did, death threats really just don’t carry the weight they used to.

This quote was posted on The Writer’s Circle, a group that posts about writing stuff on Facebook (click the picture to go to their page). It inspired a conversation among my writer friends, in which one friend told me about a “what if?” writer’s conference she attended. The speaker gave them the following writing prompt:

In 12 words or less, starting with “what if” , charismatically describe your book so everyone will want to buy and and read it.

Sounds simple enough. But here’s the funny bit-it’s not.

Here is what I came up with for The Gatestone Chronicles: Fayling

What if you were the only person who could fix magic?

It isn’t a bad sentence, but would it sell my book? It doesn’t really hit at the real story, does it?

Okay, let’s try again.

What if a human could save the universe from fairies?

Hmm. I like that one better. Closer to what the book is about, but it vilifies the fay a bit too much.

One more time.

What if saving one life could magically alter the course of fate?

Okay, well it isn’t perfect, but to be fair I have to keep it to twelve words, so it will do.

What about you reader? Tell me what you came up with in the comments below. Happy Writing!

Ah, to romance, or not to romance? That is the question I have been presented with this week.

You see, I was aiming at a urban fantasy without any lovey dovey stuff. Partly because I was afraid my attempt at literary smootchy-smootchy would end up super cheesy, but also because I wanted to focus on Jeremy-my leading fellow- and not who he is kissing. I have invented a politically unstable world, and thus far I have focused heavily on that. But as you may know, writers invent characters, and then those characters seem to do whatever the heck they want to do, regardless of your original intentions. So now I find myself battling the seemingly natural progression of a budding relationship between two of my people.

I took the issue to several of my writing buddies, and a funny thing happened. None of them had an issue with an underlying romance. Nobody thought it was cheesy. Most of them didn’t know why I was even asking, thinking I’d done it on purpose. Do you know what did happen? I got pretty divided camps on who Jeremy should end up with.

Huh.

As it it turns out, I have written myself a bit of a love triangle, without realizing I had done it. So I had a choice. Let it work itself out as I go along, or try and snuff it out. When I talked to my hubby about destroying the bit of romance, he protested. Loudly. I got a stern, “what does it matter if there is romance in it?” lecture. Oh, and he tried to say he didn’t care which girl Jeremy ended up with, but he had a lot more positive things to say about the witch. . .

Sooooo. . .

Apparently the romance stays. But I am going to blow some stuff up. You know, just to compensate. =)

I have known for some time that Fayling belonged to a series that has been forming in my head. I am pleased to announce that series has found a title, The Gatestone Chronicles. Fayling will be book one. I have commissioned artwork for the cover and secured an editor, so I can safely promise you will see it in print before summer is over. Work on Fayling began a long time ago, but I have learned to work more efficiently, and to feed the creative monster that lives in my brain. As a result, years worth of work are finally seeing real results.

With this new found method of writing, I can comfortably promise my readers that book two of The Gatestone Chronicles- which I will not name until closer to it’s completion- will be released sometime in 2016.

Between book one and two, I am working on a collaborative project with my artist friend from Nitsirk’s Grotto. I will give you more info on this project as plans solidify.